$700K Avg Billings Across 23 Recruiters: The 5 Systems That Drive It with Adrian Byra

Adrian, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me, man.

When I knew I was coming over to Sydney, or someone that I've seen with the content brand that you built, so I was very interested to get into the detail of this recruitment business you've built, building, and the way that you built it. So I think the goal of this conversation when we prepared for this was to really get into the nitty-gritty really of how you've approached building a platform to enable recruiters to become great. And I think the way that you position that is very much— if you're a $300,000, $400,000 biller with the infrastructure business that you've built, you'd be very confident you can turn those people consistently into million-dollar billers. And we're going to really get into what that looks like because I think the way that you've approached it is very scientific It's very intentional, and I think there's a, there's a lot that people can learn. So that's hopefully what people are going to be able to walk away with by, uh, when they get to the end of this, this conversation. To give everyone some immediate context for people that may not know you or your business, this is where you let me know if I get any of that— getting into— get any of this wrong. But you're 6 years into this entrepreneurial journey and starting Lead Group, and there are 2 other businesses that you started along the way, but we're going to really focus on this recruitment business, but you can reference the, the other companies that you've ended up building along the way. But ultimately, where you are now as a business is, um, 23 staff in Australia. You have 55 or so people in the Philippines that support the recruitment business. Uh, right now, or over the, the last financial year, the average billings per head is $700,000. Your core markets in the business are professional services, manufacturing, healthcare, construction. Um, and really the, the sort of whole premise here is that, uh, you bring on people that are around that sort of $300,000, $350,000 billing mark, uh, and you have a clear roadmap to, to take these people to, uh, million-dollar billers. And that's sort of where the, the business is today. And it's taken a bit of time to get there, but you really stay— stayed, uh, true to this building, uh, infrastructure platform for great recruiters. And I think— I don't know exactly where this is today, but around 60% contract, 40% perm. Is that right?

Sounds about right. It's always— we're always trying to get around the 50/50 but never quite get there.

Nice. So let's sort of start with like where this philosophy came from, or— and it might have evolved over time, but ultimately why have you positioned yourself as a business which is all centered around providing that support structure for good recruiters to become great. And I've got written down here, I think as you all know, a lot of recruitment businesses can get caught in that sort of vanity headcount growth metric. But something that has stood out to me in getting to know you is you've always thought about it with growing through people versus headcount. So talk to us a bit about where did this philosophy come from? Why did you want to sort of approach it this way? And then we'll get into what this actually looks like today.

Yeah, I think it's like any, any interesting new idea or solution. It started with a problem. And I spent, like a lot of us, a number of years with a big global, so Randstad, and saw ultimately it's easier to scale mediocrity. And so because of that, you have, if you look at the whole recruitment landscape, you got these big globals that cookie-cutter things and say, OK, let's get people to 250, and let's have a cost model of 180, and hey, we make our $70,000, and we've got a buffer there per headcount, and then we scale accordingly, right? It's a really easy recipe. As soon as you start going from mediocrity to good or even to great, it's harder to standardize KPIs, processes, understanding the roadmap, right? And so you've got companies that scaled, and lots of them. And then you got your tiny little one-man bands who never have access to real support, or, you know, and, and really don't have the infrastructure to create that, even though they are probably agile. So I thought, you know, there's really just this problem sitting there that no one had figured out how to scale greatness, so to speak. Um, and so that's really it. And I think the first step of that was People, I mean, actually a lot of people have said I'm crazy for thinking this because any business should be about the clients, right? And in recruitment on a two-sided market, it needs to be about the clients or the candidates. We said if we're going to truly, you know, build a business to make people great within it, then no, we can't focus on either of those. We have to focus on the employee and to focus on the employee. What is your product? it's the value prop of the support system that we're building for the employee. Right. So it kind of, if you look at it that way, actually, what is Lead Group's product? It's a support system. Yeah. And our customers are the recruiters. And as long as they're over threshold, we're kind of business partners anyway, because they make so much commission. Right. So you worry about them. They ultimately worry about the candidates and worry about their clients, which good recruiters do. and now they have a better support system to help them worry about that stuff.

Nice. Yeah, I think it's— I really like the way that you thought about it because it is so, like you said, really this— the, the success of recruitment business is going to be down to, to its people. I mean, any business, it's always down to, to its people and having the right people in the right seat. But I really like this, this framing of this support structure and what can we do, and everything that we decide is geared towards ultimately helping recruiters become great or perform great. What, what did— I'm just curious, like, what did— because you had to focus on generating revenue first, right? You obviously had that vision and goal, but what did— what was the sort of first step in this? What was like version 1? Because it's not gonna have everything that we— it has now, but what did you see, see to be the sort of first step in that direction when you generated enough revenue, you had to get back on the tools, you had to do all of that first, right? So what was sort of version 1 of this, do you think? Where did you end up starting?

Um, so version 1, I needed partners because, look, probably sucks to say this on, on camera, but I was never a great recruiter, right? I did $430,000 and then in my second year and then moved into management way too quick, right? Because I love— I've always loved management and I love recruitment in general, but I think that just drove me to do both and then drive my team leader and move into, you know, my management career, I guess. Um, so because of that, what did I need? I needed to partner with two people off the start who were incredibly high achievers. And so for the first year, it was one, they generated revenue for us to start building an infrastructure But two, I got to just sit in a box and learn, right, from two incredible people. And I, you know, really study it and I'm really interested in it and I really love deep diving each process and each aspect of it and how we can flip that on its head. So I think that was step one, was start with that. And also too, if you wanna build, you know, it's the same theory of building greatness within athletics, right? Right? In, in sports teams, it's the same way. You need somebody that others aspire to because then they're attracted to, to play with that person or work with that person. So me being 430, who am I going to attract, right? When you look at a value proposition of a small startup, I needed something there as a value proposition before I had built a support system, and that's what it was.

Nice. And then to, and then to build on that, what ended up being that sort of maybe first pillar of the support structure, do you think? Like what What did you— I don't know, it might have been a few things at once, I'm not sure. But what besides that, okay, you can join this business, be part of this journey, learn from great people.

Sure.

What ended up being that first part of the support structure?

I think so. Once you've got that down and you understand it and you're building collateral and building messaging and, you know, it's— everybody says, what do you sell when you don't have anything? You sell the future, right? That's what every great leader is good at. So we sold what we're going to be in 3 years. Um, we did— I think a really great thing when I reflect on it that we did do is when, when COVID happened, um, we were quite rational on it and, and kind of figured, hey, it's gonna end, and if it doesn't, we're fucked anyway, so, so who cares? I think I, uh, we had 5 staff at the time. I showed, showed the staff our, our bank account and said, okay guys, we have 3 and a half months to live with no, no revenue, so let's all work together or we're dying together. Um, that inspired us to push through, first of all, and really take onus around it. Um, I think that was really great. And because of that, we made revenue, and we were, we were actually growing profit quite well while everybody else was running away from the problem and, and going into safety and, and downsizing and whatnot. And so we were able to get a really nice office at a very, very heavily discounted rate because everybody was running away from, from the, uh, commercial building at the time and locking in that. As soon as things, you know, stopped and stable, there was a huge amount of high achievers that were on the market because their journey had stopped, right? And then they said, am I really happy because I'm not making comms anyway? The market's coming back. Why don't I make comms somewhere else? And because of those, you know, plays and kind of building infrastructure and getting ourselves to be at least a medium, you know, small or at least an SME and not like a 5-man band. We appeared as though we had the structure to support them. And so we were able to acquire kind of the first 5 or 6 really key heads that were already really quite great. Nice. And get to a point where then I turned my role into just managing these, you know, group of 8. And we said, okay, let's study these 8 and let's start putting in place how do we get them from their 500 they're doing to a million. And double everybody, how do we make sure everybody gets a personal best? So I think that was a really defining year.

So you went into that sort of non-billing role at 8, 9, around there?

Yeah, it was about 8 and 9. And when you say non-billing, I still do one deal a quarter. I quite like it. And if there's strategic value in the company for me to do some executive role or something, I'll do it because I really enjoy it and it keeps me seeing all the new stuff, right? At least I'm not a has-been, I guess.

So let's just get into— because we're refined this over time. Why is it that the way that you sort of positioned it to me is like, to even be considered or potentially become part of your business journey, you've got to be at this sort of mark performance-wise? $350,000 Australian dollars per year is sort of the number you gave to me, in and around there. Yeah, where like, that, that seems quite intentional. Talk to me a bit about that, like, where— why, why is it that sort of ballpark that you've— that you position yourself in to be like, right, this is where we need people at for us to feel like we can really offer them something. Like, where did that come from? Because I'm assuming you maybe had to learn the hard way when people maybe joined and they weren't quite there yet and it didn't work out. I don't know, like, where— how did we get to this point? And why is it that you want people at that stage and that's where you feel most confident?

That number, yeah. Um, a few things. On the commercial side, it's, uh, we have a really high cost level. Um, and so, and that's what attracts people to us, right? We pay a lot more, we give more benefits, we give lots more. So that $350,000 is really a barrier that we need to be at and need to be managing. Um, the $350,000 number as to why we bring people in— we've brought people, you're right, we've made a couple of mistakes of, of bringing people in, we're a little bit less. And I think It is a very stressful atmosphere in our business to sit down, even if you're, let's say, a, you know, $350K biller and, you know, you're third in your company and everybody else is running at $200,000 to $250,000 and you're thinking you've learned everything. It takes a huge blow to that person in the first 3 minutes when they come in and realize that they're getting their ass kicked and they have a whole new mountain to climb. And I think we've ran into a few people that weren't prepared to take that emotional journey, if that makes sense. And I think so, $350K is a good barrier to say, you know, you standardize the industry. If you're $300K, you're, you're an okay recruiter, gonna stay in recruitment. I think $350K takes a decent amount of tenacity. I think you've faced a lot of resilience already. And you've pushed yourself at least above that kind of average to above average recruiter, which in general will show that maybe they've got the resilience to come into something like this.

So you found— so just, just out of interest there, so you found that sometimes people found it challenging where what they was like near the top of the leaderboard got into your environment and they're like, hang on a minute, they're there's people doing a lot larger numbers here.

Yeah, yeah.

And didn't like the idea of climbing that. Is that what you're saying?

Oh yeah, yeah. And there's people that that is incredible for, right? And I think it's, it's intrinsically where you get your drive from, right? Um, people that get their, you know, usually from their drive from insecurities, they'll thrive from external— hey, big fish, small pond kind of thing— that makes them feel good and they're, they're better and, and they keep pushing and they love doing that and that drives them. People that get their drive from internal aspects where they just want to push to be better, those people thrive in environment. And when they say, holy shit, it's possible to do a million, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna compete, right? And I'm gonna figure out how to do that. Um, so I think that's really important, and that's a lot of what I go through in interview is, is this person, especially upon reflection after the 6 years, of who thrives in our environment and who doesn't. Um, yeah, I think insecurities really show themselves when you come in.

It is interesting to say that because I think one of the— it won't be for everyone, right? But I've met a lot of recruiters, and I do think the great recruiters, one of the best ways that you can, you can pull them into your business is actually like breaking the ceiling of what they thought was possible. So it is interesting to say that some people thrive with that opportunity to go, oh my God, I went from being the top performer to being like average. Imagine what I can learn from these people. But then there's some people that maybe don't have the humility or, or coachability, and they like, you know, being the, the top person in the environment. This is interesting to say that because I do think if you're an organization where you generally do have real high performers, I think that, that is one of the best pools I've found, where you will have people out there that want to be around. Like, that you only know what's possible in your four walls, right? Especially if you don't speak to many other recruiters, don't have many friends in it. And you may think being a top biller is, yeah, X number, 350, 400, but that will excite a lot of people where it's like, hang on a minute, Adrian and his organization, he's got 800 grand, 900 grand billers, and they're in the same market as me. How the hell are they doing that? So I do think that that definitely is a pull for the right people. I do get that. How do you, again, maybe something you've really had to refine over time. How do you find that out in the interview process? Because I can imagine it is something that you look for, is going to be that humility, the coachability, that, that's going to be big. You can't have people thinking that they know it all, they've completed recruitment, there's not much more for them to learn. How do you fish this out? How have you found to fish out an interview process?

Yeah, I, um And this is how I interview with, um, when I recruit as well, is one, I don't hire people that aren't in a power position. Yeah. So if somebody comes to me and they don't have a job, I'll tell them to go get 4 other offers and then come back if they want to work for me. Um, 2, we won't pay people more than they're currently making, so we'll never attract somebody through money. Yeah. Again, that's a short-term driver. See what you want to— like, we minimize all of the short-term drivers. For 45 minutes, I tell them exactly what they're going to expect, good and bad, in this company. I say exactly what I just told you, where I'm like, by the way, some people come in here and get destroyed mentally because this happens, this happens. I challenge them in a lot of ways, and I say, go think about that for 48 hours. Go interview other places. Go take a look. Make sure you got offers, hopefully better than your you're gonna get here. You come back and you choose me, we're in. You don't, that's cool, we're good either way. That's— so I don't, I don't try to fish because I'm a salesman and I know, I know I'm gonna think optimistically and I'm gonna say, oh yeah, they answered that right. I learned that a long time ago about myself. The best way isn't what people say, especially recruiters are all salesmen too, so it's not what they say, it's their actions behind how they react to what you do. When they're in a power spot. So that's by far the easiest way.

I'm super interested in that. And you've been disciplined with that. You don't offer people more than what they're currently on basic salary-wise.

I have never done that. No.

That's, that's, yeah, that's an interesting way to approach it.

But I tell them that up front too, and I say, just so you know, you can probably get more base salary, but this is what we do offer. I will give you growth and you will make more money here over the next 3 years than you'll make anywhere else.

But like, I do mean it when I said it to you, like generally when people listen to this, obviously there'll be other business owners that benefit from this, obviously. But a large chunk of our audience will be recruiters or aspiring business owners. And I think there'll just be a lot of, like I said to you, people who work for organizations right now that don't have this much clarity around what their business provides them, how they support them. Like that's why I always think going into the detail, people go, "Fuckin' hell." Like my manager doesn't even communicate things. To me in this way, or I don't even know this, I don't even know what my business does for me actually. It's just a good working culture. Um, so I think that that's why I always say to people is like, actually, obviously, yeah, beneficial for the content, but then also the more detailed, you'll be surprised how many people listen to it and they go, fucking hell, because they'll just compare. Yeah, it's just the truth of it. And also then it's like, like you approach your interview process, a lot of people don't. You're very clear on like, this is what we are, this is what we're not. I really respect that. A lot of people, as you can imagine, they sell for people to come to them, right? Yeah, hard.

Always.

So yeah, so I think, um, if you're— yeah, I think that, that I do like that approach. I think that that's good because you clearly know what you are, what you're not.

Yeah. And, and well, you said it is when you've got what we're striving to have, 0.5% market share, let's say. Right. 1%, let's say. Let's go really hard and say 1% market share we want in Australia. Who fucking cares, right? 99 employees shouldn't want to come to me. I just want the one that does. And so who cares? As long as we're super clear on what works for us.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Then, then things like this where I can talk authentically, it's one of our, one of our values is authenticity because I say the same thing. I'm like, man, call 100 people, you only want one of them to like you. So don't try to fake it, just like be you, and 99 of them can fucking hate you and you still, you know. So actually, you just— your calls should be to find the people you don't like and your enemies, and then you get your one, your one good client, right? That's why we have 2,000, uh, sounds fine, contact base.

Okay, um, should I move the mic close to him, or it's just if like you sort of taper off, like say you like end a sentence quietly, the mic will sort of cut.

Oh, does it cut down?

Oh really?

It does. It's just like sort of protect it from like pops and things.

Yeah, sound dampening. Okay.

So if you just try sort of—

Speaking louder?

Yeah, just speaking louder. Literally just speaking a little louder. Make sure you're just finishing your sentences strong. Like it all just sounds fine. It's just like if you just sort of taper off at the end, Yeah, okay. It might just cut off like a, like half a second early. Yeah, okay, just missed the end bit of your word.

Okay, cool.

Um, but everything's fine, everything sounds fine.

All right, so we can carry on then?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, carry on.

Um, so I wanted to ask you two things. One, with this being your strategy, basically with the types of people that you want to bring on, firstly, how of— like, how much of— if I looked at your diary, how much of it is going to be spent cultivating relationships or potentially speaking to people that could be a great fit for your business to join the journey. So how often are you actually actively recruiting out of interest?

So I want to do it even more than I am, but it's 2 hours. So 2 hours, I've got 2 1-hour meetings every week. That's, um, yeah, cultivating would be a good word because yeah, sure, that can be formal interviews, I guess. Um, but often, I mean, I've got 6 or 7 consultants that are with my competitors right now that probably aren't either there, you know, we have decided they're probably not quite at the level to start with us, but I'm almost coaching them from afar with our competitors to get them to a level where they, they feel confident and I feel confident with them joining us and, and then taking it to the next step after that.

Give an example of that because people might be like, what is he on about? How can you coach them from afar? Because you gave me an example, didn't you, of something like you're— like you just said, we're just talking about, you know exactly what you are, the types of people that you want. So give us that. I think what you gave me an example, didn't you, around that you had a call with someone and then you maybe gave some feedback? Or sometimes you will have recruiters that actually reach out because you do do a really good job with your content and you try and be transparent with the things that you share, the strategies that are happening within your business, the advice that maybe you give internally, you're giving externally on, on LinkedIn. So give us a bit of an example there, because some people might be like, what is he on about? How is he coaching people from afar?

Oh, like, I mean, we'll do monthly catch-ups. So I've got a few of them that, that have said, hey, look, I'm at, you know, they've reached out to me, usually is the case, and just said, look, I, I don't think I'm, I'm quite there yet. I'm doing $300,000, but I've been, you know, doing this for 2 and a half years. Um, you know, I would love to catch up with you and just see you know, maybe some pointers you can give me. And then from there, I guess in the initial conversation, I've just seen, seen something there. Probably usually it's a growth mindset like we were talking about before that I say, hey, do you know what, I'm, I'm good to do— let's do an hour a month and I'll catch up with you. I'll give you some advice. I'll understand your pitfalls. Just write some stuff down, some mistakes you've made, some, some things that have happened, and then let's roundtable it and see if we can come up with a behavior the following month to fix that problem.

Yeah, play the long game for sure.

Oh, like super long term. Well, I mean, that's the beauty of when you build this, this long-term mission of 30 years from now. I got lots of time, right? I'm not really trying to accomplish anything next year. So it's—

yeah, you can give me an example of— because I think again, this would be a good lesson for founders is How have you got any examples of like the longest time it's taken so far for you to get someone in the business? Because I think again, people overestimate how long sometimes it takes, right?

Yeah. Um, I'm going to say 2 years would be the longest. Um, and, and actually, oh, we, out of all the timing, we ended up starting her, she was, um, so we'd already been a year and year and a half almost. Then we figured out, okay, she's going to go on mat leave, so let's start her for 3 months, drop somebody in to create content. And then we had this plan of, of driving productivity in the first 3 months to a certain level and then have bringing somebody else in to continue that while she's on mat leave for 6 months. And then day 2— no, it was 2 days before her start date she ended up having her, her pregnancy 3 months early. So we waited a year and a half for somebody that we also sponsored on a, um, uh, visa. Actually, the reason why we have a Gold Coast office is because we needed to create an office in a regional area for her to create a pathway to PR for her, which has changed since then anyway. That was 4 years ago. Um, so we were paying for an office, paying her mat leave after a year and a half of waiting for 6 months of just incurring costs for her to then start when she got off mat leave. And I can say now, 4 years later, 3 and a half years later, best investment we ever made. Like, it's— oh, she's just, yeah, paid us back, you know, tenfold in not just billings, but, you know, piles. You know, you give people stuff up front, and that's when they know it's not really for you. And so that's when loyalty is born. So yeah, I think Man, there's— and we've got a number of other people that would be a year at least. Um, right now we're, you know, already a couple of months in on, on one girl that we're thinking is going to start the next month.

Yeah, because I think that that's also good to hear, not how long sometimes these things take, right, to get those. Because I think when this is your strategy, that is part of the equation. I think that you have to be doing it consistently and it's going to take time, but you have to have that patience. You have to be clear on what you are, what you can offer these people. But before we get into these, these support pillars, which I know a lot of people be interested in, I just wanted to— this is something that oftentimes recruitment leaders I speak to find hard, that there's sort of two parts to this question. One, how have you got better at bringing on people and managing people in maybe markets that you've never done before? Because I think that's quite interesting, right? If you bring people in, in on the journey, they're experienced straight out of the gate, the cost is going to be pretty high, and they're all— you're having to trust them on like the market expertise, the knowledge. I don't know, you can tell me. And then secondly, how it might— you might have already addressed it, but I'm sure you've heard other recruitment leaders talk about how sometimes it can be really difficult to get those experienced hires right. And I've just had so many stories where people bring them in and then it hasn't quite worked out for a number of reasons. So I think I definitely just want to make sure we touch on or just hear your take on how have you really got better at making sure if you, as you go down this route and the types of people that you hire, how have you really made sure that you, uh, bring people on and they are the right fit versus bringing people on and they come with their own approaches, their own habits, they're not willing to, to listen, is normally a thing why I always hear people talk about, yeah, we really prefer the experience because we can mold them into our own types of recruiters, you know what I mean? So there's loads of different reasons why it doesn't work on the senior side, but I just want to make sure that we address that. But what are your thoughts on that? How have you got better on the market side?

Firstly, um, oh, market side, I think, you know, I guess I've managed people for so long now that, that I know nothing about what they do, that it— I think markets are somewhat irrelevant. It's understanding the commercial dynamics of that market that matters to help manage it. You know, you want to look at, okay, obviously perm or temp, sure. But then you look at the timeline of the placement, what the process looks like. Is it a 3-part, 4-part, 1-part, right? Average fee. All of those dynamics really matter for management because then you just break all that down with a consultant and see where they're spending their time. And that's when— and then you study them for 3 months. You don't do anything, especially the scariest part with Actually brings to a point that you were just talking about, bringing in experienced people and they say, oh, I don't like experience 'cause I can't mold them. Well, yeah, an experienced person has more to lose, right? We bring somebody in with $600K billing already and they're trusting me to take them to $1 million. Well, I better not fuck up the $600K, right? And so it's actually sitting there and studying everything that they're good at and bad at for 3 or 4 months first before you do anything. And you know, you get them on the runway and then you start making the little tweaks. I think that's why it's so hard to standardize, you know, like a really high achieving desk. It's just a really difficult thing because you literally have to do that. And so the only way you can scale it, I'm learning, is you have to do constant leadership training and teach all of your managers how to do exactly what I do, which is sit there and study for 4 months before you do anything. And I, like you just brought up, I think a lot of recruitment companies don't feel like they have that kind of time.

Yeah, so I feel like what I'm just hearing here, the takeaway for me is like it's absolutely crucial that if you do hire experienced senior people that you've really tested rigorously for humility, for coachability, because there's no way that I'm going to let you study me for 3, 4 months and, you know, listen to your feedback and say, look, I've seen this, what do you think? And if I'm not prepared to listen to that, it's going to be— I can imagine it being fairly difficult for it to work out, or for me to then being successful in that organization if I'm not willing to get help. Yeah, I really like your point there. That's a really good point. So okay, you may not have all the market knowledge, but make sure you've got all that, all that commercial knowledge and understanding, and then you can apply your own experiences to what you know. If their average deal size is this, or their job-to-fill ratio is X, like, then you can work with that, can't you? Versus the, the market intel that, that is interesting.

Yeah, it's, it's funny, I actually find I'm working with, with a recruiter who took over my desk essentially, and I actually probably prefer not doing my desk because I come up with— because I ran that desk, I come up with generalizations about that desk that could be attributed to my behaviors rather than the market itself. So I actually hate managing my own desk, or what I do know as far as market knowledge. It's a lot, you know, it's the same with getting an advisor outside the business when they don't have relationships within, it's a lot easier for them to give guidance and really kind of give factual advice. I think the same thing's true with, with managing teams.

And then I know it can be nuanced, but I think people be interested in this. You just said 3 or 4 months you're studying them. What do you typically work to in terms of runway-wise of like Okay, we, they went for everything, we did everything that we normally did, but it hasn't, it's not quite playing out how we thought it would. Because surely there, there's something that you worked towards in terms of, if we're 3 months in and this is what it still looks like, then maybe actually this might not be right.

Sure.

Because I'm sure you haven't got it right every time. No. And that is also part of the, the challenge with going down this model, right, is that, uh, oftentimes there's covenants and they can't straight go back to their, their current clients. So what do you normally work to then? I know it can be nuanced, obviously, but like, what do you really pay close attention to? Do you know what I mean? Because you've got to give it a certain timeline, surely, where it's like, we've added this cost base, this is what we budgeted for them to start then contributing and bringing in, um, revenue. How do you— how have you thought about that?

So, um, we've built this kind of standardized speed to productivity in the business, and it starts with the first quarter in the business, $25K. Second quarter 75, third quarter 100, fourth quarter 150. Yeah, that is— that equates to 350 magically, right? Which again, a lot of our cost modeling is built around that. And so it actually means by 12 months, if they can follow that runway, we don't lose money on that, that headcount, right? And they work into the system already. So speed to productivity is quite, quite important with trying to scale a company in any, any possible way, right? We're trying to get that down. And we're right now studying a 6-month speed to productivity of how do we, how do we do that? And we've got one, one employee right now that just started with us who's on that runway and he's signed up for it and he knows the whole program. So I'm not going to talk confidently on that yet. But I think to your point of when do we know, they have essentially 9 months, so 3 quarters to get themselves over the 87. If that fourth quarter that they're targeting is $150K, if they miss the $87.5K, which is $350K, you know, threshold that they have to be at, that's where we have the discussion of, do you think this is right for you?

And you're— you lay this out at the beginning. It sounds like you're very transparent of like this.

Everybody knows it. Well, I say it every week in the meeting. Everybody knows. I think— I think it's really important, right? Because like high achievers in general, why do they go out on their own? Because a company gets all the money they make gets sucked up in unproductive headcounts in the business because bums on seat crap and all of that stuff. And so the companies can't pay them, you know, ultimately what they could if everybody's productive. So I lay that out. That's the necessary evil, right? One, it's if our clients, our brand essentially is we're the best recruiters, with the best support system, they better be the best recruiters, right? I'll tell you right now, I know that numbers doesn't drive, you know, are they good or not, but that's a great standardization. If you're not doing 350, candidates aren't winning with you and clients aren't winning with you enough. Like, it's just not— you're not great, right? So I think it's— you've got to generalize something, and I think that's where we sit. And everybody knows coming into the role, everybody knows every week in our company, everybody knows certain people that are under it and, and feeling the pressure. But rather, we, we talk about it like, hey guys, they're feeling the pressure, they want to be here, and we all want them here. So any help we can all do over the next couple of months for individual X, I think they, they'd appreciate it. And when you're down one time, they'd probably do the same back.

And then what, what's your sort of— because again, part of the being able to attract and get really great high-performing recruiters in your business is that they're high in demand. There's a lot less to— they've got more to walk away from, even more so, not contracts, right? If they have a contract book. What's your, what's your take on like, what do you genuinely believe like generally attracts and keeps the best recruiters engaged? You know, there's a lot that probably goes into your employee value proposition, right? But what, what do you think actually these types of people actually care about? Because there's a lot of things that we could give these people, right? Whether it's a wellness day once a month, whether it's not working in the office, flexibility, autonomy, a good commission structure— there's a lot of things that we can give them. But what, what do you feel like, cutting through all that, that they actually care about? And it could be nuance, and you may feel like it's a bit different depending on the person, but what have you seen play out most consistent now in terms of what these people actually care about It'd be interesting to hear that.

I think growth, right? The constant feeling of moving forward towards their target. And I, and I can't say growth as, as a, you know, what I view it as, but what they view it as. So whatever their long-term goal is, if they're progressing there— and winners will, if they're not, they'll go find, they'll blame the environment and go find something that they can continue their journey. Right? So that's what they're attracted to. And that, to your point of how do you weed out the wrong people, is you say what we are is about growth. Again, I minimize short-term things. I talk about what do you want in 3 years, because this is what I want in 3 years. And if we both want this and they align, in 3 years, if we leave each other, which may happen, at least we're both closer to our goals and we've helped each other on that, on that journey. But the person that's attracted to the 3-year plan they're the person that is going to want to stay and be interested in the growth plan that we can give them.

So let's get into these 5 support pillars then that you've built over time that you really feel like is delivering that support structure for these types of people. So we've got— let me know if any of this is wrong, by the way— so you've got outsourcing, automation, AI, tech, training and upskilling, marketing, brand, sales support, and then mindset and beliefs.

Yeah.

So I think that's all different pillars, right? Yeah.

You could probably almost go outsourcing and automation are one, two of the same. Yeah. And they're almost a continuation in order to do— yeah, really, once you move— well, no, sorry, we could call it outsourcing and process. And that kind of moves into how the foundation of how you build proper AI and automation.

So let's get into this outsourcing piece because I think Because I agree with you, I think if we do this properly, you can then a lot more easily layer in technology, automation, AI, if we actually understand our processes, our workflows.

Yeah.

What I found really interesting, you, when you talked to me about this exercise that you do with the recruiters where I can't remember exactly how you said it, is it that I would, I would basically rate myself in certain areas, or like, I would communicate to you what I think I'm really good at, what I'm bad at. Just tell me a bit about that exercise. I think this is a really interesting exercise.

Um, yeah, so basically you're almost there. We, um, uh, we push habits through the company of every week, them just basically something they're doing that one, either they don't like, or, um, they don't see as being valuable to getting them to where they want to go, which usually, by the way, coincides with one another, right? We all love the things that we're naturally good at and we dislike the things that we suck at. So that's the beauty of it. You can pretty much say, just write down all the shit you hate as an attraction strategy. But really that means, hey, write down all your weaknesses because you're now at a level in your career, if you're at 350, where you're not trying to round yourself up, right? You're trying to lean into your strengths, especially with how fragmented every, you know, the world's getting where we can outsource everything. Um, everybody, once you get to a certain level, should be literally bombing out everything that you're not good at and spend 10 times more time on what you're good at, right? So yeah, every week they'll just write down something and say, hey, I've done this 4 times every day for X amount of time. I think it's important to get me there, but yeah, it's not worth my time and I hate doing it, right? And this attracts a lot of people who are 5 years in their industry and like, oh, I hate doing ads now, or I hate doing this, or I hate doing that. And so we write it all down, we build a job spec. As soon as they complete their job spec and they've hit the necessary growth stage as far as billings, which is the $100K, is where is the threshold where, okay, you've now done $100K by yourself, let's add an outsourced head. And over that 6-month period, we've been building out this perfect job spec. We do strength profiling with everybody in the Philippines, which essentially takes the 32 strengths of any individual and says, okay, these are their top 8. So we do that profiling because then we've associated 32 tasks that are commonly outsourced by our recruiters, and we associate that to the strengths. So each strength has an associated task that connects to it. So then we can go into all of our, our, Renella, our internal talent acquisition in the Philippines. She'll then say, hey, here's 6 profiles that are almost perfect for that. Here's how their strengths match up to this job description. And then they'll interview that. For that specific job description for that individual. That's kind of what I mean where it's very difficult to scale because there's all these little nuances. You almost have to build process of the nuances rather than just a simplistic process itself. Yeah?

And then when— so is that a continuous weekly thing that they do, or does it sort of— I can imagine you do that a lot in that first 12-month review.

Yeah, so it certainly tapers off. But like a lot of— anybody that's been with us for a couple of years typically will now have 2. 2 people working full-time for them, um, and in doing, you know, various tasks. So then we start that process again as soon as they're like, hey, I think we're at the next, you know, the next stage of growth. Let's figure out, can we, can we build another full job spec?

And it's really interesting that you've done it around like when you get to the sort of $100K mark, then we can look at adding someone. And obviously there's a cost, there'll be a cost reason for that, but I think that that's really quite cool the way that you've done that. Out of interest, again, it'll be nuanced, but I know what people be interested in is like what what typically ends up in that top— in the top 5 activities or top 3 activities that normally ends up finding its way onto this sort of outsourced task sheet? Because I can imagine— I'll take a guess— it is where oftentimes we then end up looking at AI and technology. It's the sourcing, it's the market mapping, it's the maybe admin stuff around the CRM. You'll be able to tell me, but what, what's typically found itself most consistently at the top of that list?

Yeah, it's mostly that. Like, actually, like, usually you find The best recruiters are where they are because they love phone time, right? And they just love selling. And so usually it's everything but that. So, but repetitive tasks, right? Especially we always talk about, it's a recruiter's job to dig for gold and it's the resourcer's job to run as fast as they can and pick up all the gold on the ground. Yeah. So it's, I don't know why I've come up with that metaphor. It's not like I was a gold digger, but, But yeah, so if you look at processes like that, like setting up, okay, if a lot of your candidates are found by Seek or one of the databases, so let's say Indeed's, you know, backend of Indeed in their database, it's going in every single day and running a search for 1 hour daily of any new updated CV within that person's 2,000 contact market. So the clients and replicating that, right? And running that daily. No recruiter ever does that daily, but we do because we outsource it and standardize the process. And then the— why I was saying processes like that are processes, step 1 to automation and AI, because then step 2 in our business is we talk to all the resourcers and say, okay, your guys' growth is value versus time. So now you write down everything that you think isn't a valuable use of your time. And this is accelerating with AI because it's AI and outsourcing in the future is going to, it's going to compete with one another. Yeah, right.

Definitely.

Yeah. So now they're writing down as, as a lifeline to basically say, okay, how do I create more value? Get rid of this shit that automation can do. So then they're writing stuff down, sending it to our developers to say, hey, can you build this for us? Because I'm too good for it now. So it's almost like layers of, of task management to just keep dropping it down to a lower valued chain.

I'm gonna get like a bit granular here. Sure. I'm just like, what would you— if I looked at— because I'm big into this in my own business, so I have a small business, I've had a virtual assistant nearly over the like, yeah, nearly over 4 years now.

Yeah.

And she plugs into my small team. The way that I do it is I'll say to them that if you want Carla's name, if you want, if you want Carla to help you or anything, this is what I need you to do. So it would be a Loom video of like a step-by-step walkthrough of like doing the task or doing the process so she could watch that back and like stop it, pause it, go back. And it's a really good resource for her to maybe go back and watch it back if she needs to remind herself how to do it. And then that needs to be accompanied with a Google Doc, which that video will go into, with a step-by-step guide of like, do this, then this, then this, and this. If you want Carla to help you with anything, any of those repeatable low skill level tasks, that, that needs to be there. Yeah, is our sort of task document. Is there anything like, if I looked at one of your task documents, because I'm sure you've systemized this, what would be like the headings on there, like, or what has to be on there in order for someone in the Philippines to actually then Sure.

I think the most simplistic form and what we started as, which is probably the easiest for any listeners to copy this or along those lines, would be, all right, just a header. They'll take an Excel spreadsheet, they put a header, then they put, okay, what that task looks like, even just a short little description of what that task. Okay, so, and then take the timeline. So how much time per week is this going to take on average? Then step by step, every single process written down of what they need to do in that. And then lastly, what they need training for. And then a little checkmark beside training if it's done or not to upskill them. That would be in its most simplest form. And that's basically what we do now, just in a fancier looking, looking setup, I guess. That then, you know, when we talk about job spec, that process doc is the job spec. So sure, we give a fancier, nicer looking job spec, I guess, but actually there's a process doc associated with that job spec that literally step by step— so we know we've filled 38 hours. Yeah, so again, likewise, when you talk value versus time that we're trying to sell this, we say, okay, this is a 38-hour job spec, but your goal is to try to drop this time. Get all this stuff done in 34 hours. We can then add a new task that takes 4 hours per week, and we can pay you incrementally higher for that task.

Yeah, I like that you added the, the time it takes on there. That's the interesting one to add.

Yeah, and I'm saying like Monday 9 to 10. So then, then you've got an associated calendar just filled out. You know exactly what that person's doing at every single moment. And I know that is micromanagement at its finest.

Yeah, but with that stuff, I feel like you you just have to be like that. I'd rather be like that personally. If you're outsourcing, it's like super direct. This is what you need to do at this time.

Totally. And like I said, for a step 2, now that AI and automation is so big and prevalent, we're already set up to drop that down the next level, right? Yeah.

Just final bit on outsourcing, because I know you've built a whole business now around this, but like, just curious on your take on this, and then we'll get into the tech piece. Where— I'm sure you've, you've seen this, may or may not have, but from a UK perspective, like, I would say on par with the sort of massive surge in AI has also been outsourcing, particularly to South Africa because of the time zone and the talent available, um, in, in South Africa. Where— what I'll get your thoughts on, because you're in the detail of this, is like, where do you feel like from a recruitment perspective, the outsourcing part of the recruitment process stops. And what I mean by that is, so I, I would speak to someone who has an outsourcing company, South Africans, and they place, um, South Africans into recruitment businesses. And I said to them, consistently where I have found those types of companies to have the most value is in what we're talking about, the sourcing side. The market mapping, that sort of side, versus the client-facing, the, uh, getting meetings, the biz development. But there's 100% people that can do that for sure. Yeah, but most consistently it's been the other side of it. So I just want to get to hear your take on— I know again there'll be someone in the Philippines that's capable, no doubt there'll be people in Philippines that are capable, but for the most part, where do you, where do you think it stops to the point where you then like, I'd want my recruiters doing that, or I'd be a bit concerned about then how people in our market would perceive us or the quality not being there. Yeah. How does it—

Yeah. I think it does depend on the industry, like quite a bit.

And there's been a lot of recruiting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so there's been a lot of trial and error over the last 3, 4 years that we've done of like, all right, that doesn't work so well. But I think it should stop at the place of where true recruitment value comes in. You know, particularly with all this change, which is influence. So as soon as the point of influence comes in, so it's not just talking, right? I think speaking on the phone, there's incredible amount of value, Philippines. But as soon as you have cultural differences, that impacts influence dramatically, right? Dramatically impacts it. And usually that's associated to humor. So actually in the outsource people we did, quite a while. I haven't, I haven't been close enough to it, but we were doing humor training, right?

Really?

Yeah, because humor is, is proven to fix cultural boundaries. If you understand the humor within that, within that country, you can also become or integrate a lot, a lot easier, and then you can thus kind of continue that, that state of influence. So when you talk about like trust and credibility, which are the two key components of building relationship Um, it's, uh, I guess outsourced headcounts, when they're reaching out, if they can build trust by being honest, which sadly we've all had these calls, and often they're not in typical sales training, not trained to be honest. They say, I'm representing blah blah, and they dodge around where they're living or things like that. Well, no, our, our people say, I'm living, you know, I'm living outside of Manila, and you probably hear chickens behind me, and that's because I'm in a tiny little village and I'm outside working on my computer. But anyway, I work with a company in Sydney, right? That just builds trust. That, that really overcomes a huge barrier. Then they associate credibility by linking themselves to that recruiter. So rather saying, I'm calling to interview you for blah blah blah, they say, I'm calling on behalf— actually, realtors do really well at this. You have one big name that's on every little, you know, um, whatever, billboard and stuff like that, and their face is everywhere. And then they have their little minions wailing away saying, I represent blah blah blah, I represent blah blah blah, right? Kind of that same thing is I work for Adrian Byra, who has been a 14-year recruiter within this space within Sydney, and he's got access to, you know, 100 of the closest companies for you. So I've got, you know, the next 5 minutes, I'm going to ask 10 questions. This is the information that's essential for Adrian to then decide whether, you know, what you're right for. So provided you answer these well, he's going to give you a call back and kind of dissect things further.

Yeah, great insights there.

And that's how you've nailed trust and credibility while doing it from overseas.

Yeah, I love that. I just love that. Makes so much sense. I can see, I can see a lot of companies sort of dodging the fact like they're, yeah, they have an outsourced team. Or I love that, like just owning that. Yeah, instantly. Yeah, it's gonna build that credibility. And then I really love that trust by association with people. I think that's really smart. And obviously because they're going to be working with very experienced recruiters, they're going to have a network That I can see that working really well. What do you think? And I'm sure you've seen this again, nuanced markets, but if I'm, if I'm a recruiter that, um, let's just assume that, yeah, I've done, I'm doing 350 consistently and I've done a good job at writing down my processes and I've mapped out a number of tasks that I feel like a low skill level and maybe typically taking anywhere between like 20 to 30 hours a week from me, like, what, what is the uplift that we can expect performance-wise? Do you know what I mean? Because I'm sure you've seen this. So like, if we then get a really good— there's a lot of variables here, but if we do it all right, what have you seen consistently here? Is it a 50% uplift in performance? Is it more than that? I don't know. What, what is— where— what is the type of uplift that we can expect if we do it all right and all of the pieces are singing together?

Um, you know, just You're talking just with an outsourced headcount?

Just outsourced headcount, yeah. Because you've done this a long time now.

Yeah, I was going to say it's hard because there's so many different things we chuck in there, and then we look at the average increase in rev. But I would say double if you do 2 headcounts, 2-to-1 ratio. You should be able to double your billings if you do it right. That's probably around where we would get to.

What's possible, yeah.

Yeah.

So how, how do we build in the automation AI tech then? I think I've had a few conversations about this. You were sort of framing up earlier, but I think where people will go wrong with this, in my opinion, is if they try and implement tech AI into an environment where there is no process, there is no system. It's sort of maybe organized chaos. Everyone is sort of just doing what they do. It's in their heads. You can absolutely implement tools and it could have an impact, but I think you're probably going to fall short of the, the potential impact it can have. Which is why I think whenever I do speak to people about this, it's like you have to understand what your workflows are, where your maybe team are spending a lot of time, where you could claim back some time. Because the whole sort of AI play, for the most part, when you look at products— and you would have been sold all of these and will continue to be sold of these— is like, we can give you recruiters an hour and a half back a week. Or like, it is typically the time-saving piece, right? Yeah. But I think, how do you even know what What time is going to be saved if you don't know what, where people are spending their time, right? Is the first thing, which is why the system process piece, I always say to people, like, start there. Like, you have to understand where are your people spending time, asking the questions that you're asking. So how, because you have, you literally have full-time, um, tech people in your business because you also have a video platform as well.

Yeah.

So just talk to us a bit about how, how do you then, how have you let, how are you, how have you laid in the technology, the AI, the automation piece, because that's the other pillar here in terms of supporting your recruiters.

Yeah. So because AI is so new, I can give you an overlap of kind of what our strategy is now and what we're kind of in the middle of. Because I don't— again, when you have people that have a lot to lose, you don't do anything half-assed and you don't try a lot of stuff. Put it in place perfectly and then you execute, um, because the risk is far greater. But, um, with automation, like, like you said, I think we're— because of that process, exactly what you're saying— we're really set up to then drive into automation. So, uh, in those lists that we build, we look for commonalities across the resources and say, okay, this, you know, this is something that's hitting— all of them are saying they're too valuable for this you know, X task. So then we'll go and say, okay, what automation product could be on the marketplace? We'll also push it to— we've got a 6-person development team, like I said— push it out to them and say, hey, what could we build internally? And then we kind of weigh it up, weigh up the cost of building it, weigh up the, you know, the product itself, and then implement. So that— we've probably gotten to that stage in the last year where we've been doing that. Which has been quite, quite good because again, it's giving, giving the value back to your outsourcing headcounts. Again, I think the scary thing with, with, well, really what you said, automation and AI, I think the scariest part for one-man bands is, is the organization and understanding what, and it's just this big jumble and a big mess and they try shit and then, you know, never the execution of it never works, right? In a bigger company, it's safety and the messaging around it. So I think we've gotten really good at ensuring our people, you know, instilling that our people believe that automation is actually going to create, allow them to create more value for the company and then allow growth to them. And if you don't spend years of ingraining that in your culture, you're already kind of set up to fail in this adoption. Now with AI, we've— as soon as we kind of saw that coming, we have somebody in our Sydney office that is for the last 9 months, I guess, going through different AI implementation courses and been studying it, and he just loves it, right? So he's shifted his headcount in Sydney so that he's doing that as a part-time basis for the company. We've added a full-time headcount in the Philippines that will report They'll sit with the, I guess, a dual reporting line into the tech head that we have over there, as well as into Sydney. And so Sydney's job is really to, one, help people understand, you know, and drive that change management of it while also relaying information to the tech team to say, hey, this is a great, you know, this is a great thing to study. Let's try this, right? And so then we're building out for that headcount basically a 3-stage integration into our company over 3 months. So you only choose one thing per quarter, because if you push too much change, it's all going to blow up.

That's good insight.

And then it's just monthly. First, you trial it, research it, choose 2. Then you do an A/B testing on 2 different desks. Then you choose one. Implement into the company.

And then just curious, what's like one thing that's found its way to 'I'm too valuable for this' type of task? I mean, the most consistent ones right now, from what I can just see from my lenses, it's basically things like note-taking on calls. That just always is something that people are thinking about from an AI standpoint. I think that there's probably a lot of real low-hanging fruit around just really enriching your CRM and data and like, you know, doing a lot more automation around that and using AI to do that. Yeah, um, is what I'm seeing a lot of. And then there's definitely going to be bits around obviously AI and automation around your outreach and these things. But I think that's where, particularly from people that I've met so far in the Australian recruitment market, where every time I hear the Australian recruitment market, how it's different, it's like it's very relationship-led. Yeah, the idea of an AI, uh, communicating to people in the market, real humans, and that affected my brand. I'm really concerned about that. I want to protect that. But like, what, what's, what's found its way at the top of that list so far?

Yeah, so, um, like you said, note-taking, we, you know, that was, yeah, that was relatively early, like maybe 9 months. Yeah, I don't even know timeline anymore. A year ago, 9 months ago, that, yeah, that we started. Basically everybody had it. I think I started with it and then everybody just saw me doing it and then all did it. I didn't even do a change management on that. I think the value was just there, right? So yeah, I think that was a big one. You mentioned it, but we're really into data in our company. So we've got, again, that speed to productivity. Before someone starts, we map out 2,000 contacts before they start. We have permanent full-time mappers in the company that are just mapping out their entire industry. So they have all that laid out. Because we go off of the 1% market share is the goal. We were talking about it earlier, you know, in 20 key clients. If they have 20 clients that love them and they love those clients and that produces, you know, X amount of rev, they don't need any more. So they start with 2,000 and their goal is, hey, find the 20 that are perfect for me, my perfect external clients out of those 2,000. So really, really into that. And we got a team of 3 that's just constantly not just building the initial, but constantly rinsing this and fixing as people change jobs, they're just fixing all this information for recruiters. So internally, the biggest project that the tech team's building right now is AI that can do that. They can basically search it and allocate it and rebuild it constantly.

And then like enrich the data, enrich information.

Constantly enriching. That's a great word. Yeah, I should have used it. I'm going to use that word. Enriching the data. Yeah, so that's a big one. And then marketing. Marketing has been big. You know, we've got a 4-person marketing team, but with the power of AI, they're now— not only do they just manage, you know, the company accounts and stuff, but they can, they can drive so much content across our individual desks as well.

I think marketing does a lot.

Yeah.

So the other pillar here, we've like— people won't be surprised to hear this, but you've— the other part is like the training, upskilling doesn't stop, right? The consistency of supporting these recruiters that join you on this journey, you've done the legwork and the hard yards of building— you've got like an on-demand training library internally of, um, I can imagine, yeah, like great calls, great meetings, different things. But have you been really committed to this, and has this been a really important pillar? Because I can imagine we've all heard people leave companies and say, I wasn't supported enough, I didn't get the training. So this is something that's been really key in keeping your experienced recruiters engaged and you know, stuck with you to get the success that they want and you want, is that consistent upskilling?

Yeah, um, that's been one of the, you know, for 6 years, one of the continuances in the company that just, just every single week I do training within the company, um, and we've got 45 minutes. It's directed on one tiny core competency that I have just read and read and researched and researched as much as I possibly can so that we have unique training content within our company that just sits within our walls. They're recorded and added to our platform every single week. And it just gets, you know, I kind of have an annual system, but then I take a look at it and say, oh, all of that was wrong last year. I'm going to redo it again. Whether I'm just making work, I don't know. So we do that and that's driven by like, so we, you know, in our benefits package, we pay for MasterClass for everybody. We pay for Blinkist for everybody. We have a Lucid account that's for if you're more of a visual learner. So we have a bunch of these different things and that's driven through our culture. Like I listen to— well, every single day I listen to 4 Blinkist, so 2 in the morning and 2 at night. I've been doing that for like 9 years and Blinkist basically is Audible and it summarizes a book.

Yeah, I tried to get on with that. I didn't get on with it, but I've tried it.

It depends on the person, right? And that's why we have a few other learning platforms. For me, it's great, right? Yeah. And so then I'll drive those 28. Usually I'll build— I'll just listen to 28 books that is going to be the next week's training so that I can upskill myself from the year before. And constantly, but we drive that through the company. Like, I'll listen to 28, and one I'll listen to and think of one person in the company, and I'll send them. I'm like, listen to this, right? And they all have this subscription, so we kind of drive learning that way. We have a nice little bookshelf in our offices of Bookshare, so people just Yeah, take— it's almost like a little library of business books as well. Love that.

And then tell us about— so then have you always been— obviously you've, you've— I, I feel like I've seen your content for a while, but big advocate of not just company branding but very much making sure that each individual is building their brand, building their presence. And that's obviously offline but also online as well. That's, that's a key pillar.

Yeah, I, I mean, yeah, yeah, you're, you're, uh, I'm sure you're an advocate for it. Particularly the last year or year and a half have been really driving that. Because I think that's, you know, when we talk about growth, it goes hand in hand, right? And that's a way to create continuation for the individual. We said earlier that I'm like, well, if, you know, if their journey in the next 3 years, they want to do X and we want to do X, and those journeys align over the 3 years, Well, personal branding is one of those things that I know at the end of those 3 years when they leave us and do whatever other cool thing they're going to do, um, I've helped them on that personal branding journey by just reinforcing that. And that's continuation for them rather than the company. And I think that's really important because it's so directly tied to the growth of the individual.

Yeah, I think, yeah, for me, I just can't really get my head around how it's still like should I do it, should I not? I just, I just think it should be a non-negotiable. Um, and then what underpins all of this, which I'm not surprised at all, is, is the mindset and beliefs piece. So tell us a bit about this, because I'm sure if we get, you know, if this part is right, then the rest of it, we have a really good chance of taking care of itself, right? If we've got the mindset and the belief. So tell us a bit about that and what you've sort of run into and why that's a pillar.

Um, Yeah, well, I mean, we, we talked about that earlier. It's about getting the right people, um, with that growth mindset together, right? But also tied to if you don't get people that care. And we talk about the, um, in that 45-minute spiel I do before I even interview them to say go think about this, um, I explain the right people for our business, and the right people are autonomously driven because We want to minimize wastage if we want to be great, right? And the biggest wastage in this industry is managers managing drive and the individual getting managed or their drive getting managed, right? So as soon as I— and I say this all the time in interviews— as soon as I kind of get a sense that they're not working hard, I just say it. I'm like, man, I'm not going to drive you if you don't want to do it yourself. I worked in Randstad for 4 years. I'm not doing that again, right? Go be a scuba dive instructor or something fun. Like, don't, don't do this if you don't want to go somewhere, right? Um, so I think driving those behaviors coupled with autonomous drive, they align to our values. So we all have this, you know, tied value alignment, and everybody, if they buy into that, essentially they— I know that they're going to buy into my decisions that I'm making, right? And that's what values are. Um, and then lastly, you care about others in the room as much as you yourself. And that, for, um, if you're in a room of greatness and nobody's helping you, does that really change your, your belief system of what you can possibly do versus you're in a room of a bunch of individuals that are doing a million dollars and helping you do $1 million, it— everything changes. And, and that's, uh, I don't know if you've ever watched The Momentum Generation. It's, um, surf movie of, of Kelly Slater and all his 10 buddies that they would go to the same wave break in, in, um, Hawaii and stay at the friend's little cabin every, every summer, right? And at one point, 8 of those 10 members were in the top 10 best surfers in the world. Really? And it actually talks about, maybe it doesn't talk about that much. It's probably talking about the documentary, but all I saw was business. But the way they were talking about it, it was like they built this perfect environment where they encouraged each other, but then pushed each other over barriers that they just couldn't do alone, right? And they would fall, wipe out, get scared, hurt themselves. Everybody would laugh at them and say, get back out there. Right? And so they all just rose up together. And I think that is the most important and untapped thing that most companies— and I really felt it in the other companies I worked with— just didn't ever tap into. And I think that's too when you talk about the standardization of the 350 barrier that we talk about. If you are in a room of people that you know are competent enough, you're not scared of your brand, and you're not scared of helping them, and you're not scared of introducing them to a client. Or a candidate because you know that others around you are at a certain competency level of, you know, 3 years minimum experience and 350. So that gives you the confidence to just share and help, you know, and really leverage that strength of the company.

I love that. Yeah, I think that the way that you've— I really like the way that you've approached things, and I say it to a lot of recruitment leaders now because I think during that COVID period, the boom period that came after that, I think a lot of recruitment leaders really found themselves just to compete for talent, like pandering for what they, they thought people wanted. And I've lost count the amount of people that I've spoken to. The easiest example is, yeah, during that boom period we didn't care about KPIs, standardization, we thought that's what people wanted. And then we come out the other side and it was like, no, no, we had, we had to get back to what we are. And I always say to people now, like, the most important thing on, on that sort of one of when you're on that entrepreneurial journey, just being clear on like what type of business you want and what you are also, and really owning that. And there's nothing wrong with owning that because you can say to people, this is what we are, you can, you know, join the journey or not. I think it's just a bit having the courage to sort of say no to people, not fall into the trap of like, no, no, please like join, join my business, and overselling. So I really I really respect how you've approached things here, and I'm sure it's just going to consistently get better. So I'll be very interested to hear what these sort of pillars look like or how they've evolved, you know, in the next couple of years. But what are the— what's the sort of the big goal then over the next 12 months? Like you said, you don't like to change things one thing per quarter, but like, what's the big thing that you're really aiming for over the next 12 or so months in your business?

So again, the AI is going to be really exciting. I think just winning at that is going to be a difficult little challenge. So again, we— so my goals come from the support system. So when you talk about that, I know you're like, okay, well, we're going to be, you know, X amount of people and stuff. I don't really care about that. That's driven by the people. So if I have people in the company that are leaders and they say, look, I want to have 3 more headcounts on my team next year, then that's what we'll make happen. That's what we'll grow because we're growing for the people we've committed to. Around the support system though, I think that adoption of really getting the AI implementation done over the next 12 months because I think that's going to be winning the AI journey isn't going to be, you know, right now it's just if you take the same as the 3 years of the dot-com bubble, it's, you know, a race to the top of all these companies. So not only is there going to be new AI companies coming up, they're going to be going bust left, right and center too. So it's actually the winner isn't going to be who adopts it first. It's how you make sure that you're super agile as a company as far as that change management of the AI. And as soon as one blocks out, okay, next 3 months we're going to adopt this new one and then we're going to shift the whole company. So I'm really excited about that. Over the next year. I'm excited to drive— I'm always excited for the people to get better, so push PB. So if I— yeah, you could ask me different individuals. I'm really excited about their growth, I think, rather than my own, I guess, and the company's, if that makes sense. I think we're shifting into— because like if you look at the long-term strategy with AI, influence, like I said, is the biggest thing. So I'm really excited over the next year to keep upskilling us as consultants. And true HR consultants. And so the shift of us being really, really strong in employer branding, really other areas that wouldn't be considered our core business so that we can be true holistic consultants with our HR partners, essentially, and HR clients. I think those will probably be the two areas. If I could say next year, who are we relative to this year? Those are the two areas I'm going to be putting a lot of my focus in.

Love it. Adrian, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for joining me.

Thanks so much, man.